What is Epigenetics: How Trauma Gets Passed Down In The Womb
Are you curious if your parents or your parents' parents' trauma is impacting your life? Is it possible to pass down trauma in the womb from your ancestors? Could you pass down your own trauma to subsequent generations?
Maybe you're diving into your experiences and found that early life trauma is impacting your mental health and quality of life. Or perhaps, you've been reading up on trauma and epigenetics and want to know how it applies to your life, whether you can work through it, and prevent it from passing to your children and theirs.
What is epigenetics?
Simply put, epigenetics is the study of how your environment or behaviors, typically in early life, may cause changes in the way your genes function.
The genes children inherit from their parents or ancestors, called epigenetic inheritance, may also impact how a person regulates and processes experiences in their life.
What's the difference between genetics and epigenetics? Genetics typically deals with how a DNA sequence leads to cell changes, while epigenetics is focused on DNA or gene regulation that helps achieve those changes.
Epigenetic change can effectively turn genes "on" and "off," so it makes sense that your behavior and environment can result in changes — which is why diet, exercise, and mental wellness are all so important.
What is it called when trauma is passed down?
"Genetic trauma" is a term floating around different communities and refers to trauma that has happened in previous generations, imprints on the DNA of the person, and then is passed down through the womb in some way.
More research is needed, but it makes sense that trauma can be passed down from generation to generation, whether inherited or not.
It's believed that these "chemical marks" have no mutations but, instead, alter the gene expression. The good news is that you can reverse damage caused by traumatic experiences in your lifetime and the lifetimes before you.
How trauma can impact future generations
Intergenerational trauma may leave a biological or psychological residue. It's hard to pinpoint whether a stress response is inherited through parenting practices, social conditioning, or biological factors.
Can you inherit your parents' trauma?
It's possible.
Adults may experience the effects of trauma or posttraumatic stress disorder from:
Childhood abuse, neglect, or maltreatment
Family dysfunction that carries through multiple generations
Retold family stories of traumatic events
Witnessing or experiencing trauma
The question remains: if your parents or ancestors experienced the above traumatic events, could those epigenetic marks be passed down in the womb to your relatives and eventually to you?
How To Heal From Genetic And Childhood Trauma
You'll find plenty of evidence and articles across the internet talking about the intergenerational effects of trauma. Many people develop PTSD from environmental factors and likely from epigenetic inheritance too.
Epigenetics can impact brain development, physical health, and epigenetic regulation.
It can sound overwhelming or hopeless when faced with carrying the weight of previous generations, and it’s possible to pick it up in bite-sized pieces as you develop the tools to lay some things to rest. So what are your next steps toward healing from early trauma or childhood adversity?
Connect with a therapist or support person who understands complex trauma and can create a safe space for processing your experiences.
Learn about your family history. The more you know, the more you can understand. The more you understand, the better you can discover where your struggles may have started and work toward solutions.
Immerse yourself in positive environments like nature and healthy relationships where you feel safe and supported. Your environment impacts the plasticity of your brain. A healthy environment leads to a healthier brain.
Focus on self-care basics — daily movement, nourishing diet, and quality sleep. These simple steps often get overlooked when feeling overwhelmed, hypervigilant, or anxious.
Participate in activities that bring you joy and allow you to express yourself. We can't change our DNA, but we can hit the "on" and "off" switches for how genes express themselves. Find ways to have fun!
Find ways to stimulate the vagus nerve — the main nerve responsible for the "rest and digest" part of the nervous system that connects to all organs and sends information on a "superhighway" to the brain stem. You can do this through singing, dancing, art, massage, meditation, deep belly breathing, and plenty of other ways.
Reducing The Impact Of Trauma On Future Generations
We know that one generation's unresolved trauma can pass to the next. It can cause many problems, including poverty, compromised parenting practices, and mental and physical health issues. But we have the power to stop some of it in its tracks.
By facing your struggles head-on, you can open up lines of communication with your family, rewrite the narrative of your past, and start the healing process. As you move through this process, notice patterns and feelings that come up, and offer yourself compassion because you’re doing hard and meaningful work.
You’ve got this.
